H-20 bomber (with H-X, JH-XX)

Blitzo said:

Replying only with links and quotes implies that you think I am not aware of those specifications or pages.
I am very aware of them, and the way you are replying conveys the impression that I'm poorly read, and it's not conducive to constructive discussion.
At the very least offer to try and justify why you think those websites numbers are credible. But that's fine, I'll explore everything myself, below:

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Not even remotely sure why you need to take me citing sources to back up my statements as some kind of indictment on your personal character. JFC

Blitzo said:

If we do some basic estimates of the distances traversed between refuellings, launched from Missouri, there were then air refuellings over:
- California (some 1500nmi from Missouri)
- Hawaii (some 2000nmi from California)
- Guam (some 3300nmi from Hawaii)
- Strait of Malacca (some 2700nmi from Guam)
- Diego Garcia (some 1800nmi from Strait of Malacca)
- and then finally from Diego Garcia, to Afghanistan and back (landing) which is some 2400nmi each way, aka 4800nmi between Diego Garcia and Afghanistan

As we can see, not all refuellings were of equal distance between each refuelling point, likely based on availability of land based tankers between refuelling points, and the permissiveness of the environment of each refuelling point.

But if the B-2's unrefuelled combat radius was 5000-6000nmi (implying its one way unrefuelled range is 10,000-12,000nmi), then we would not have seen anywhere near the frequency/pattern of refuelling that was carried out for that sortie. Considering each air refuelling mission is a rather major procedure for an actual combat sortie of a valuable, VLO strategic bomber like B-2, if the unrefuelled combat radius was 5000-6000nmi, then the USAF absolutely could have omitted refuelling over California and the Strait of Malacca, and simply only refuelled over Hawaii, Guam and Diego Garcia.

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These numbers don't even make sense as an explanation since if it's actually such a big deal ("major procedure") to refuel, then the B-2's 6,000 nm unrefueled range, which I suppose you are taking to mean the same thing as ferry range, would have allowed it to EASILY skip California AND the Malacca Strait. What it actually looks like is that the refueling procedures on this trip had little actual relation to maximum ranges (or to the actual "majorness" of refueling) beyond us learning that the minimum ferry range of the B-2 is 3,300nm.

Blitzo said:

One other factor to consider is that a 5000-6000nmi combat radius would allow B-2s based at Hawaii to carry out strike missions against the PRC mainland without needing refuelling (and with a bit of fuel to spare). Such a capability or mission profile as far as I am aware has never been suggested as viable by individuals in the official space or the so called osint space, without having the necessity of tankers. Which is to say, if the B-2 really did have a 6000nmi combat radius in a way that was so obvious, then it would long have been spoken of as a capability and threat profile.

Tying this all back, my suspicion for why "combat radius" is sometimes mistakenly cited as 5000-6000nmi is because there is deliberately no official numbers for combat radius provided either by the USAF or by Northrop. Range is much more vague and nebulous and can vary based on mission loadout or flight profile, but having an absence of "combat radius" has led some websites to make their own assumptions that 5000-6000nmi represents "combat radius" and putting in assumed mission loadouts and flight profiles.

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Not sure why any range capability such as "unrefueled vs China" that by your own admission is being deliberately obfuscated by the USAF and/or Northrup Grumman would be openly advertised.

Iron Man said:

Not even remotely sure why you need to take me citing sources to back up my statements as some kind of indictment on your personal character. JFC

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It's a reflection of good conversational etiquette.

You may wonder how you keep getting into arguments with people on this forum; it isn't because of your arguments themselves but the manner in which you conduct them.

Iron Man said:

These numbers don't even make sense as an explanation since if it's actually such a big deal ("major procedure") to refuel, then the 6,000 nm unrefueled range, which I suppose you are taking to mean the same thing as ferry range, would have allowed it to EASILY skip California AND the Malacca Strait. What it actually looks like is that the refueling procedures on this trip had little actual relation to maximum ranges beyond us knowing that the minimum ferry range of the B-2 is 3,300nm.


Not sure why any range capability such as "unrefueled vs China" that by your own admission is being deliberately obfuscated by the USAF and/or Northrup Grumman would be openly advertised.

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That's fine, if you genuinely believe B-2 has an unrefueled combat radius of 6000nmi, even after what I've presented, that's okay.

But I think it would be useful for you to reflect on what actually makes you believe it has a combat radius of 6000nmi -- because of the sources you've presented, the only one that definitively describes B-2's combat radius as 6000nmi is Army Recognition, while other sources (on the internet overall) describe it as "range", or a most "combat range" as opposed to using the word radius in a specific capacity.


I have nothing else to add to this chain of discussion.

Blitzo said:

It's a reflection of good conversational etiquette.

You may wonder how you keep getting into arguments with people on this forum; it isn't because of your arguments themselves but the manner in which you conduct them.

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Oh I see, so if I say too much it's bad, and if I don't say enough, it's bad too. Got it.

Blitzo said:

That's fine, if you genuinely believe B-2 has an unrefueled combat radius of 6000nmi, even after what I've presented, that's okay.

But I think it would be useful for you to reflect on what actually makes you believe it has a combat radius of 6000nmi -- because of the sources you've presented, the only one that definitively describes B-2's combat radius as 6000nmi is Army Recognition, while other sources (on the internet overall) describe it as "range", or a most "combat range" as opposed to using the word radius in a specific capacity.

I have nothing else to add to this chain of discussion.

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It actually does say "combat radius". I quoted directly and linked the cite. What else do I need to do?

tankphobia said:

Tbf even just in anti shipping duties the H-20 will be superior to j-36 + CCAs. By sending less aircraft with bigger payload capacity, it will be far easier to hide the launch of the strike package. Sending 20 airplanes with 2 cruise missiles each would increase the chance it is picked up via satellite imagery vs 5 H-20 with 8 missiles each. More range also means you can launch from airbases far in the rear not normally monitored by enemy.

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The operational freedom offered by a broadband stealthy and long range aircraft would be great. A H-20 based in the middle of China would be able to strike Diego Garcia in the morning and Guam in the evening.

ENTED64 said:

Attacking the US with a handful of unsupported H-20s based in mainland China is pretty unrealistic and unlikely to accomplish much, this is true.

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I vehemently disagree. Once you get past the first island chain the Pacific is very very empty. Known positions in the second island chain (like Guam) could be avoided and the EW suite on the H-20 will definitely detect any radar that could detect it before that radar detects the H-20. I disagree with the second part too. The American military infrastructure is nowhere as hardened, defended or dispersed as of China's. Because it wasn't evolved with getting hit on the mind and the US doesn't spend that much on land based air defense. Being able to strike CONUS even in a token capacity would lead to two things:
1- It would have political ramifications as CONUS getting hit isn't something American politicians have accounted for decades. Provoking China would suddenly become a decision with a lot more political gravity.
2- It would lead the USA to harden its military infrastructure and buy more air defenses, which means less money spent on force projection.

Iron Man said:

What else do I need to do?

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you should consider the possibility your source was wrong.

Blitzo said:

That said I do also think a H-20 with a combat radius of 5500km would be very useful, or vital even for the PLA of today and the near future, but such an aircraft will not be capable of striking Alaska/west coast from mainland bases.

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Then any guesses as to the why the long delay?

BoraTas said:

I vehemently disagree. Once you get past the first island chain the Pacific is very very empty. Known positions in the second island chain (like Guam) could be avoided and the EW suite on the H-20 will definitely detect any radar that could detect it before that radar detects the H-20. I disagree with the second part too. The American military infrastructure is nowhere as hardened, defended or dispersed as of China's. Because it wasn't evolved with getting hit on the mind and the US doesn't spend that much on land based air defense. Being able to strike CONUS even in a token capacity would lead to two things:
1- It would have political ramifications as CONUS getting hit isn't something American politicians have accounted for decades. Provoking China would suddenly become a decision with a lot more political gravity.
2- It would lead the USA to harden its military infrastructure and buy more air defenses, which means less money spent on force projection.

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I'm pretty skeptical that on the whole Chinese military infrastructure is significantly more hardened than US equivalent. A lot of targets are essentially civilian infrastructure such as ports, bridges, etc. Those are likely the same in both nations. As for actual military bases or airfields I don't really see any evidence that Chinese ones are somehow unusually better than American ones at damage control or being hardened. Neither do I see any evidence that Chinese military factories are more hardened than American ones. Do you have any evidence or citations for your assertion? Regardless the sheer number of targets in USA is staggering, a handful of H-20s would be a drop in the bucket. And again I maintain this is a pretty poor use of H-20, the PLAAF would be much better served using it closer to China.

As for land based air defense, it's not like USA doesn't have any, there are 15 Patriot battalions in service. That's like 400-500 launchers. That's not counting USN ships and such. So it's hardly like the US is particularly lacking in ground based air defense, in fact if we consider Patriots vs only HQ-9 and HQ-9B, the US probably has more.

Regarding the secondary effects, it's hard to predict how these things will play out. I'm very doubtful point 1 will apply, if the US is really committed to a major war with China then H-20s and/or few targets on the West Coast being blown up will not change that. However point 2 is plausible but again hard to predict and I'm not convinced US military infrastructure is much more vulnerable than Chinese equivalent.

ENTED64 said:

I'm pretty skeptical that on the whole Chinese military infrastructure is significantly more hardened than US equivalent. A lot of targets are essentially civilian infrastructure such as ports, bridges, etc. Those are likely the same in both nations. As for actual military bases or airfields I don't really see any evidence that Chinese ones are somehow unusually better than American ones at damage control or being hardened. Neither do I see any evidence that Chinese military factories are more hardened than American ones. Do you have any evidence or citations for your assertion? Regardless the sheer number of targets in USA is staggering, a handful of H-20s would be a drop in the bucket. And again I maintain this is a pretty poor use of H-20, the PLAAF would be much better served using it closer to China.

As for land based air defense, it's not like USA doesn't have any, there are 15 Patriot battalions in service. That's like 400-500 launchers. That's not counting USN ships and such. So it's hardly like the US is particularly lacking in ground based air defense, in fact if we consider Patriots vs only HQ-9 and HQ-9B, the US probably has more.

Regarding the secondary effects, it's hard to predict how these things will play out. I'm very doubtful point 1 will apply, if the US is really committed to a major war with China then H-20s and/or few targets on the West Coast being blown up will not change that. However point 2 is plausible but again hard to predict and I'm not convinced US military infrastructure is much more vulnerable than Chinese equivalent.

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While I'm ambivalent as to the utility of H-20 vs opportunity cost of other programs, Chinese efforts to harden infrastructure are both extensive and well documented.

The People’s Republic of China (PRC) expects airfields to come under heavy attack in a potential conflict and has made major investments to defend, expand, and fortify them.1 Since the early 2010s, the PLA has more than doubled its hardened aircraft shelters (HASs) and unhardened individual aircraft shelters (IASs) at military airfields, giving China more than 3,000 total aircraft shelters—not including civil or commercial airfields. This constitutes enough shelters to house and hide the vast majority of China’s combat aircraft. China has also added 20 runways and more than 40 runway-length taxiways, and increased its ramp area nationwide by almost 75 percent. In fact, by our calculations, the amount of concrete used by China to improve the resilience of its air base network could pave a four-lane interstate highway from Washington, DC, to Chicago. As a result, China now has 134 air bases within 1,000 nautical miles of the Taiwan Strait—airfields that boast more than 650 HASs and almost 2,000 non-hardened IASs.

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To the best of my knowledge, a grand total of zero hardened aircraft shelters have gone up in CONUS since the end of the Cold War. A cursory search also yielded no evidence to the contrary, though I welcome any corrections in this regard.

As far as GBAD goes, the US is both overspecialized and lacking. Overspecialized in that it's majority BMD. Lacking in numbers, at least comparatively speaking. It's basically all concentrated in the US Army's Air Defense Artillery branch, which going off memory has:

- Four M-SHORAD battalions (and plans for another four)
- Three C-RAM battalions (and plans to transition to nine IFPC battalions)
- Fifteen Patriot battalions (and plans for one more)
- Seven THAAD batteries (and plans for one more)
- One GMD battalion
- Three LAAD battalions (technically under USMC, but hey)

Call it 33 GBAD battalions total, which are spread quite thinly across the entire world, from Germany to Guam. They're tasked with defending against everything from quadcopters to ICBMs. As per the Key West agreement with the Army, USAF does not operate any of its own GBAD.

Meanwhile PLAGF alone fields 78 battalions attached to combined arms brigades, plus another 13 dedicated brigades attached to group armies. And that's just the ground forces with short/medium stuff; we haven't even gotten to the 24 brigades under PLAAF which run the theatre-level IADS. A theatre which, needless to say, concentrates all of those assets in one country. There's really no comparison here; it's not even close.

ENTED64 said:

Then any guesses as to the why the long delay?


I'm pretty skeptical that on the whole Chinese military infrastructure is significantly more hardened than US equivalent. A lot of targets are essentially civilian infrastructure such as ports, bridges, etc. Those are likely the same in both nations. As for actual military bases or airfields I don't really see any evidence that Chinese ones are somehow unusually better than American ones at damage control or being hardened. Neither do I see any evidence that Chinese military factories are more hardened than American ones. Do you have any evidence or citations for your assertion? Regardless the sheer number of targets in USA is staggering, a handful of H-20s would be a drop in the bucket. And again I maintain this is a pretty poor use of H-20, the PLAAF would be much better served using it closer to China.

As for land based air defense, it's not like USA doesn't have any, there are 15 Patriot battalions in service. That's like 400-500 launchers. That's not counting USN ships and such. So it's hardly like the US is particularly lacking in ground based air defense, in fact if we consider Patriots vs only HQ-9 and HQ-9B, the US probably has more.

Regarding the secondary effects, it's hard to predict how these things will play out. I'm very doubtful point 1 will apply, if the US is really committed to a major war with China then H-20s and/or few targets on the West Coast being blown up will not change that. However point 2 is plausible but again hard to predict and I'm not convinced US military infrastructure is much more vulnerable than Chinese equivalent.

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Personal opinion: The route to the New World only represents a deterrent possibility. As we know, China and the United States are almost as wide. How much threat the number of 100 poses to targets 10,000 kilometers away is a very subtle thing.
Just proof that one day the stock markets in Shanghai and New York can be lowered?

ENTED64 said:

Then any guesses as to the why the long delay?


I'm pretty skeptical that on the whole Chinese military infrastructure is significantly more hardened than US equivalent. A lot of targets are essentially civilian infrastructure such as ports, bridges, etc. Those are likely the same in both nations. As for actual military bases or airfields I don't really see any evidence that Chinese ones are somehow unusually better than American ones at damage control or being hardened. Neither do I see any evidence that Chinese military factories are more hardened than American ones. Do you have any evidence or citations for your assertion? Regardless the sheer number of targets in USA is staggering, a handful of H-20s would be a drop in the bucket. And again I maintain this is a pretty poor use of H-20, the PLAAF would be much better served using it closer to China.

As for land based air defense, it's not like USA doesn't have any, there are 15 Patriot battalions in service. That's like 400-500 launchers. That's not counting USN ships and such. So it's hardly like the US is particularly lacking in ground based air defense, in fact if we consider Patriots vs only HQ-9 and HQ-9B, the US probably has more.

Regarding the secondary effects, it's hard to predict how these things will play out. I'm very doubtful point 1 will apply, if the US is really committed to a major war with China then H-20s and/or few targets on the West Coast being blown up will not change that. However point 2 is plausible but again hard to predict and I'm not convinced US military infrastructure is much more vulnerable than Chinese equivalent.

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The delay is almost certainly because they had other priorities. Effective air control near China is much more important and so is blunting American strike capacity against PRC. The H-20 isn't needed at all if the goal was just Taiwan or even projecting strikes to Guam. I also personally speculate that the H-20 got redesigned around a WS-15 derivative and a slightly different concept. Thought, that one is just my own speculation.
Civilian infrastructure wouldn't be hit. If a nation is short in strike capacity, it strikes high-hedge military assets. Aircraft, ships, maybe munitions depots, etc... On hardening, there is no single complete citation on this but you can read the annual DoD reports to the congress. They have paragraphs dedicated to underground facilities and hardened shelters.

These photos should be illustrative. These are airbases. There aren't many different bases in West Coast of CONUS to target.

ENTED64 said:

I'm pretty skeptical that on the whole Chinese military infrastructure is significantly more hardened than US equivalent. A lot of targets are essentially civilian infrastructure such as ports, bridges, etc. Those are likely the same in both nations. As for actual military bases or airfields I don't really see any evidence that Chinese ones are somehow unusually better than American ones at damage control or being hardened. Neither do I see any evidence that Chinese military factories are more hardened than American ones. Do you have any evidence or citations for your assertion? Regardless the sheer number of targets in USA is staggering, a handful of H-20s would be a drop in the bucket. And again I maintain this is a pretty poor use of H-20, the PLAAF would be much better served using it closer to China.

As for land based air defense, it's not like USA doesn't have any, there are 15 Patriot battalions in service. That's like 400-500 launchers. That's not counting USN ships and such. So it's hardly like the US is particularly lacking in ground based air defense, in fact if we consider Patriots vs only HQ-9 and HQ-9B, the US probably has more.

Regarding the secondary effects, it's hard to predict how these things will play out. I'm very doubtful point 1 will apply, if the US is really committed to a major war with China then H-20s and/or few targets on the West Coast being blown up will not change that. However point 2 is plausible but again hard to predict and I'm not convinced US military infrastructure is much more vulnerable than Chinese equivalent.

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Why make such a long post without doing any basic research?